It is my first encounter with Akashi and sadly I must say that it wasn’t so pleasant. In general I found the drams quite harder to drink than any other whiskies I had before and I found them more or less unbalanced (except the red wine) where the young whisky did not really find a way to accomodate the cask finish. Instead of taking the guest room, the finish took over the house and ruined it somewhat. Present in all whiskies was white pepper, sometimes to horrific extent. The Sake stands out being so obscure that you might either love or hate it - I had to brace myself before every sip and if this would be the last whisky on a deserted island I would rather drink seawater.A few drops of water helped all drams, though expect no wonders reg. the Sake.

https://www.whiskybase.com/whiskies/whisky/127433/white-oak-03-year-old Tequila 82-74-66Nose: The nose is a bit new makey (young), malty and fruity (citrus, pear), pleasant at first, reminding me of bourbon casked 8 or 10yo Bruichladdich. With more air, the Tequila comes through which is bad news as it dominates the whisky. Bags of white pepper make the nose more unpleasant.Taste: Hasta proxima Whisky! Hola Tequila! Dry, perfumey (gentian), white pepper. I rather drink a regular tequila neat compared to this.Finish: Short finish, only in the mouth. The tequila overstays it’s welcome here, too. The white pepper add cold spice.Totally unbalanced and dominated by tequila. Drinking a bottle tequila gets me more for my money.

https://www.whiskybase.com/whiskies/whisky/96992/white-oak-05-year-old Cognac 86-83-78Nose: A subtle Cognac note enhances an otherwise new makey whisky, which is dry with a candy sweetness and exactly one yellow plum.Taste: Dense and syrupy, honey, yellow fruits, dryness (gentian) and white pepper.Finish: Fire! White pepper enhances the flames burning the lips. This stays throbbingly around the mouth.Much better than the tequila but far off being an easy dram.

https://www.whiskybase.com/whiskies/whisky/112139/eigashima-the-aka-head Red Wine 87-83-80Nose: a big lucious sweetnees with depth. Some marzipan. The grapes shine through giving the young whisky more maturity.Reminds me of Laddie wine cask valinches.Taste: Wine and sweetness (grapes). Too much white pepper.Finish: Fire, wine and white pepper. Spicy and dry. A hint of concentrated swiss cow dung in the aftertaste.A tad better than the Cognac.

https://www.whiskybase.com/whiskies/whisky/127024/white-oak-akashi-x-hanahato Sake 42-50-55Nose: Some fellow germans might remember „die Kuh Elsa“ and this might be the nose of her last visit to the latrine. This is the most concentrated smell of cow dung I have every smelled outside of a farm. Imagine a butt full of dung mixed with mouldy cabbage water left over after cooking a cabbage 14 days ago. The best attributes I could find was gongonzola dolce sweetness, some citrus and honey. WTH?Taste: This is how I imagine liquid cow dung to taste. I had to brace myself before every sip.Finish: Hoping for a quick finish here but the dung stays somewhat, some yellow fruit come through at the end and make it less horrific.I was expecting so much of this one. It is one of the worst whiskies I have ever tried. I wonder whether the sample bottle was contaminated, but hell, with what?

This Akashi experiment has failed badly. It just doesn’t seem to be my taste.

Nose

87
87

Taste

83
83

Finish

80
80

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